Self-Portrait @Lee Price

For many, a snack is not just a snack. Whether serving as a means of rebellion, a secret indulgence, a compulsory drug or a well-deserved reward, a seven layer cake often has a few extra layers of meaning beneath the surface. As if everyone’s relationship with food wasn’t complicated enough, the public seems to have endless things to say about women and their dining preferences. Remember how much the internet freaked out when Lena Dunham ate a cupcake in the bathtub?

NEW YORK, NY.- President Barack Obama hailed the love and sacrifice he said was “the true spirit of 9/11″ on Thursday as he inaugurated a haunting Ground Zero museum dedicated to the Al-Qaeda attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people. Obama said the museum, in the footprint of the former Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, would ensure the horror and heroism of September 11, 2001 would not be forgotten by future generations. The president, speaking slowly and somberly, told New York dignitaries and relatives of those killed in the attacks that it was an honor to recall “the true spirit of 9/11 — love, compassion, sacrifice — and to enshrine it forever in the heart of our nation.” Obama said that he was grateful for such a “sacred place of healing and hope” in the bedrock of Manhattan island, and vowed “nothing can ever break us. Nothing can change who we are as Americans.”

Radical Latin American women artists. Latinos and science fiction. A survey of contemporary artists that covers a territory from Tierra del Fuego to the Mexican border. The fall of 2017 will see the launch of 46 exhibitions and events around Southern California devoted to artists and designers of Latin American descent. The initiative, funded in part by $5 million in research grants from the Getty Foundation, is a follow-up to that organization’s successful “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980” series of exhibitions from 2011–12, which focused on documenting and exhibiting the art of Southern California. The new wave of shows—collectively titled “Pacific Standard Time: L.A./L.A. (Los Angeles/Latin America)”—will draw an unprecedented level of attention to art from a region that has been spottily covered in the United States.

Weaving her way through hard-hatted workmen labouring to finish the €52m (£42m) transformation of the Picasso museum in Paris, Anne Baldassari seemed more excited than anxious. The result would be worth the wait and “do justice to the extraordinary collection” of Picasso masterpieces, she told the cameras. To others, she was more direct. “I have given my life to this museum. I will open it. Full stop. End of story.” That was just over two months ago. Today, anticipation has turned to anger; art and high-minded cultural ideals apparently sullied by back-stabbing and squabbling.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is floating to lawmakers whether the state should contribute money to shore up Detroit pension plans to stave off the sale of city-owned pieces in an art museum. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP

Creditors say bankrupt city’s collection, possibly worth more than $870m, could be used to pay debts, but city managers resist
A judge in Detroit’s bankruptcy refused to grant hands-on access to a valuable trove of art Thursday, telling creditors who face steep losses in the case that they can visit a city museum and browse the walls like any other patron. Bond insurers have pointed to the art as a possible billion-dollar source of cash in the bankruptcy. But the city is firmly opposed to any sale and instead is banking on a separate, unique deal that would protect the art forever and soften pension cuts for thousands of retirees.

Ever since he sculpted a self-portrait out of his own frozen blood, Marc Quinn has enthralled the public, annoyed many critics, and been embraced by collectors. The quintessential Young British Artist is now middle-aged, but still notorious One has a strange sense of déjà vu upon meeting British artist Marc Quinn. His head—or, rather, a frozen sculpture of it cast from his own blood—has become an iconic image of contemporary art, etched into our collective memory. At once a portrait of the artist and of Everyman, the sculpture, titled Self, encapsulates life and death—a memento mori of real matter that could, theoretically, be cloned to make new life. And there is a steadily growing army of these eerie Quinn replicas, which evoke Frankenstein’s monster, Aztec sacrifice, and the Christian Eucharist.